PMI’s Business Analysis Standard – What You Have to Gain

 

PMI’s Business Analysis Standard – What You Have to Gain

By Laura Paton

If you are reading this blog chances are you are interested (dare I say passionate) about business analysis. Whether you have been following our blog or not, it’s worth re-announcing that something really BIG is on the horizon. Later this year, PMI will be publishing their full consensus based standard on business analysis - The PMI® Guide to Business Analysis (Includes The Standard for Business Analysis).

Why should you care? Well there are a lot of reasons, but here are my top 3…

1. Our profession deserves a standard - a body of knowledge that helps us discuss the work we do and the value we provide; this standard can serve as the start to those conversations. 
2. Many professionals have been super excited about PMI’s business analysis credential, the Professional in Business Analysis or PMI-PBA^® and have been eager for PMI to publish a body of knowledge to back the credential. You asked and PMI is delivering.
3. Despite many years of preaching the need for PM/BA collaboration at our chapter events, many project teams still don’t understand how business analysis supports project, program, and portfolio management. This in turn continues to impact the level of success and value achieved on our projects. The answer to your questions lies within the pages of this newest standard!

But there are other standards in the market, so how will this product be different?   Let me provide you the top 5 reasons.

1. PMI’s standard is new and fresh, developed from extensive research and the time to market has been quick. This means you are receiving the ‘latest’ thoughts and practices making this product timely and relevant, especially if you work on agile projects. 

2. Speaking of agile or adaptive life cycles, the development team made sure adaptive life cycles were equally considered as were predictive life cycles when this standard was written. Not only will you understand what business analysis looks like on agile projects but you will receive a clear comparison of business analysis work between life cycles helping you quickly gain the knowledge needed to apply your business analysis skills  regardless of which life cycle is being used.  One stop shopping – all in one standard!

3. If you hold other PMI credentials or if your organization has adopted the PMBOK^® Guide as your organization’s core standard to quality project management practices, you will find PMI’s BA standard a perfect fit. That’s because business analysis is described in terms of process groups and knowledge areas; taking on a similar structure to the PMBOK^® Guide. By defining the business analysis processes in this manner BA work can easily be compared to project management, which this guide does beautifully.  You know those conversations you have heard regarding who is responsible for stakeholder analysis, planning, or risk management - the PM or BA?  Confusion be gone!  This new standard makes the connections and clears the air on areas of overlap between the PM/BA roles.

4. If you are a fan of PMI’s Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide (and chances are that many of you are since the product has been very well received) you’ll love the synergy and compatibility the new BA standard provides. Many practitioners are turned off by hard to follow academic publications, and I feel your pain. The easy to follow and understand language provided in PMI’s business analysis practice guide has found its way into this newest standard making your reading pleasurable not laborious.

5. Lastly, PMI is known for quality in the areas of research, standards development, and certification. If your organization or you personally are confused about how to get started in business analysis, how to discuss this important work, or how to establish standard business analysis processes on your projects - PMI provides a suite of business analysis products and services to support you. Check out the list of tangible PMI member benefits for those interested in learning more about business analysis:

• The PMI^® Guide to Business Analysis (Includes The Standard for Business Analysis) (2017)
• PMI’s Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide
• Professional in Business Analysis (PMI-PBA)^® credential
• Two online business analysis communities:
  • Business Analysis & Requirements Practice Area on ProjectManagement.com and
  • Resource Library on PMI.org, 165,000+ resources and growing
• Annual ‘free’ business analysis virtual conference; the largest BA conference in existence!
• Pulse^® research reports covering topics in business analysis
• PMI Global Conferences
• Seminar World Sessions in business analysis

We often talk about defining the ‘value proposition’ when we perform business analysis. Perform your own analysis about business analysis and determine what is of value to you.

Think new, think fresh, think PM and BA synergy – there is a new BA standard coming to the BA community in 2017! How will you leverage the value?Let us know we would love to hear from you!